Chapter 9: Responsibility and The Bonds of Eternal Sunshine

Previously: "I should have known I'd be used. I'm so weak," she cursed to herself out load.

Suddenly, the door opened and Hinata gasped and ran to assemble herself in her clothes as Hiashi walked straight into the room…

"Hinata," he said and Hinata froze, her bed sheet wrapped around her nude form and her pajamas and underwear in hand.

"F-Father, I-I c-can e-explain," she stuttered. "Hinata, sit down," her father instructed rather calmly.

She rested her clothes back on the small futon and sat back down on her enormous bed. Hiashi came over and sat next to his daughter. "Hinata," he started, "there will always come a time in a woman's life when she has to take the next step forward and fulfill her duties as a woman. Part of that is leading this clan and household with pride, knowledge, and love. Not only love to the family, but love to your husband as well. There have been many suitors who wish to have your hand in marriage, but I turned them all away except for one of whom I thought was completely suitable. He is a kind and generous young man and I believe he will be a great husband. He hasn't had a lot in life, but he should suit you fine."

Hinata began to sob and cry at all the things that were finally really going on. First, she had the night of her life and actually felt loved for once with the man she's always loved and now she realized that he only used her. She feels completely alone, and now her father is talking about her getting married.

"Hinata," her father began again, "do not sob and cry like this. It is unbefitting for a young woman of your stature."

"Father," Hinata cried, "Please, I—"

"Now hush, my child," Hiashi continued. He had never spoken to Hinata like this for as long as she could remember. "It may seem to you as if I do not see you as part of the Hyuuga family, but it was because I was testing your strength. I know full well that you will be a very fulfilling mistress of the Hyuuga family."

"Now," he continued seriously and sternly, "I understand that you spent the last night with Neji Hyuuga, the son of my brother."

"Father, I—," Hinata started again but, Hiashi suddenly raised his arm above her. Fearing the worst, Hinata flinched and held her arms up instinctively to block the blow that actually never came. Instead, Hiashi simply put his arm around his daughter's shoulder and she could almost see a small smile appear on his lips. "I have taught you well to always be ready to defend yourself and fight for yourself even in the hardest of emotional situations," he said.

"Hinata, I want you to tell me the truth, and I shall promise you that I will not be angry with you. Do you love Neji-san?" he asked. The tears that had welled up in Hinata's eyes had finally been released and she said, "Even though I did not wake up with him this morning, I fear the worst. I fear that he does not feel the same way. I don't want to believe that he is like other men. I don't want to believe that he used me and then left, even knowing the consequences of his actions. But last night he told me that he loved me and could not live without me. I do not know if his words are true, but……I will always love him no matter what. Even if I do get married, father."

"Very well," Hiashi replied. "But you shall be a suitable wife to your husband. He has asked for a long time, you know. And I have turned him down every time, but still he persisted. Now I believe he is ready. But first, I did tell him that you, Hinata, must accept his proposal. He has already pledged his life-long love to you, Hinata. Yet, I told him that the only way he would have my decision is if he proposed to you himself and you accepted."

"But I—," Hinata started with a fearful tone.

"No buts, Hinata. Now get dressed," Hiashi demanded.

"Yes, father," Hinata said. She had a huge lump in her throat and could no longer hold it in. She grabbed the dress she had put out to wear today and pulled it over her head harshly. She made up the bed, and as she set the last pillow on the frame, she could smell Neji's scent like fresh perfume sprayed on the pillow. Hinata began to cry.

"Hinata," Neji said stepping into her room. "Hinata. We need to talk."

"No, Neji!" Hinata had to force herself to suppress her scream. "You left me. Why did you leave me? I thought you said you loved me Neji. I thought that you really cared."

"Hinata," he said and quickly came over to the bed, where he laid his arm around her. "That's why I wanted to talk with you." Hinata shivered in response to his touch like how she had the night before.

"Hiashi-sama came into the room and summoned me. He knew about us and spoke to me about it."

"Neji, I'm getting—," she began wishing to tell him of her engagement.

"Please, Hinata. Let me explain," Neji continued. "Your father told me of his plans concerning your engagement and told me that you had to accept the suitor's proposal first, am I right?"

"I don't want you to—."

"Am I right?" he interrupted looking into her eyes once more that were cast down to look at something else.

"Yes," she replied with a sad sigh. "Neji, please, I—." He cut her off again with a simple kiss. He could feel her tears against his cheeks as he pulled away. He wiped her tears away and smiled at her.

"Well," he continued, "Here goes," he said and got up from the bed to kneel down in front of her. He held her hand and took out a gold ring with three diamonds studded on. On the inside of the ring, the engraving read "Neji & Hinata Forever."

"Hinata," he said as her eyes went wide in happiness and confusion. The tears she had already started to shed turned into tears of joy. "Will you marry me?"

Hinata's smile grew wider and wider and she hugged him and said "Yes! Yes. A thousand times, yes!" He smiled and slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her with every drop of love he had in his heart. "But," she started, "I don't understand."

"I was the one who had asked Hiashi-sama for your hand in marriage all this time, and he didn't think I was ready, and didn't think that you were ready. When he came into your room early this morning and saw us sleeping together, he saw the happy expression on your face and said that he would agree to give me your hand in marriage, but only if you accepted it."

Hinata grinned at her fiancé and kissed him again before the two pulled each other in for a hug. "I love you so much Neji," she whispered in his ear. "And I love you Hinata. I always have," he whispered back.

Hiashi quietly opened the door slightly and peaked in at the couple hugging and saw the ring on Hinata's finger as well as the smile on her face. He closed the door quietly and walked back down the hall, chuckling and smiling.

"Hiashi-sama," said a servant nearby who was one of the 3 lucky people to see Hiashi smile.

Hiashi's smile quickly disappeared and he stared menacingly at the servant. "Do you have a job to do or are you just going to stand there like a dumb-founded goat?!"

"No, sir," the servant quickly replied. "Not at all sir. I shall get back to my work immediately," he said and scurried off in the opposite direction. Once out of Hiashi's sight the servant sighed of relief and then grinned brightly at the scene his eyes had fallen on. "I knew there was no way that Hiashi-sama was really an ice-cold heartless rock," he thought and smiled.

--Back at TenTen's estate--

TenTen opened her eyes and looked around at her room. She got up and stretched and put on the t-shirt and boy shorts that were on the arm chair next to her dresser.

She combed out her hair and looked dazedly around the room once more as the memories of the previous night flooded through her mind. "What a night it was," she thought.

Then it hit her like a solid brick. Gaara wasn't there. His gourd was gone and so were his clothes. "Shit," she shouted aloud. "God I am such an idiot! How the hell could I fall for that?!" she raved as she opened the door to her room and stomped down the stairs. "How could I be so stupid," she questioned aloud.

"Stupid about what? You're not stupid," Gaara said from in the kitchen as she walked in.

"Jeeze! Kami, you scared the living hell out of me," she jumped and exclaimed as he briskly turned around with some plates in his hand. There was eggs, toast, coffee and fried saké-noodles.

"Wait. I know that you like weapons and all, but you've got Hell living inside you?" he asked with his eyes growing wider.

"Um. Never mind," she said and shook her head smiling.

"Okay. Why would I scare you? We did, um…well……spend the night together," he stammered with a blush. TenTen's cheeks turned a bright red and she smiled and turned her face away. She pushed her hair behind her ear shyly.

"I thought you…" TenTen started timidly, "I thought you would have left."

"What?" he answered, "Why would I leave? Do you want me to leave?" he questioned quietly.

"No, no!" TenTen said quickly. "No. It's just that……well, after a guy meets a girl all he wants is to really just get in her pants, you know?"

"Well," he said taking a seat, "If you thought that me telling you that I love you was just to 'get in your pants' then you are mistaken. There's a saying that I have followed no matter what the situation is. 'Say what you mean, and mean what you say' and…I do. I mean every word."

"You said 'telling me that you love me,'" she said.

"What," Gaara asked.

"What I mean is," TenTen said smiling softly, "you said 'love' and not 'loved' as in present and not past tense."

"I meant to say love, because…well, I still love you…and always will," Gaara replied. "Let's eat."

"Yeah, I'm starving," TenTen said with a devilish glare at the feast before her.

Moments later………."Oh my god," TenTen exclaimed. Gaara dropped his fork and stared up at TenTen.

"This is the best coffee I've ever tasted," she exclaimed taking a sip of the sweet drink.

"Um," Gaara began, "It was in your cupboard. Though I did have to remove two shuriken from inside the bag before I put it in the coffee machine," he said smirking at her.

"Well, I don't know how they got there," TenTen mumbled, shifting her eyes away and hiding her smile with a sip of coffee.

Gaara took another bite out of his toast and chuckled for the first time in ages.

--Seven months later--

"Honey," Gaara called out to the upstairs bedroom, "We gotta go. Hokage Tsunade has a new mission where she needs a couple of people who are good in defense and attack strategies."

"Again?" was the reply. TenTen put her long, straight hair up in the style it was in when she had went to the portal of her mind and met the strange talking raccoon who was wearing the Pedora suit. Though, she did use a "simple" black hair clip instead that had been equipped with poison darts in the design (of course). She slipped her marital ring onto her finger, smiling.

Gaara was standing in the living room of the new mansion he and his wife had moved into on their new estate. He was reading a letter from the Hokage about an urgent notice; he put the notice down and stared dreamily at the marital ring on his finger, then moved his gaze to a small card on the dining table.

"Gaara," TenTen called down as she made her way down the stairs. She packed up the last weapons in her satchel. "Have you picked out something to wear yet for Saturday?"

"Yeah," he replied giving her a kiss saying a small "good morning."

"Morning," she answered.

"I was thinking of my white, orange, black and gold Pedora, since it's going to be outside."

"Okay. I'll pull out my white and gold kimono."

"My favorite one," Gaara questioned with a smile.

"Yes, our favorite one, Gaara," she replied chuckling and grabbing her key.

"You have the other invitation right?" he asked.

"Yes. It's already in my bag. The other one's on the table, right?"

"Yeah; I can't wait. I'm glad those two are finally getting married," Gaara said.

"So we won't have to worry about Mr. Follow-Your-Destiny ever again," TenTen added with a smile. Gaara shook his head grinning.

Sitting on the table was a beautiful cream-colored card with lavender flowers embellished on two of the corners and in the center was a message painted in delicate, gold, Japanese calligraphy:

"TenTen and Gaara,"

You have been cordially invited to be guests at a commencement of union between Hinata Hyuuga and Neji Hyuuga as they celebrate their bonds through a traditional marriage on Saturday at 1.00 PM. We hope you can attend this event of happiness, joy and unity on Saturday at the Willow Tree in Konoha Forest. We look forward to your arrival and hope you can come to celebrate with us. Thank you.

- Head Master of the Hyuuga Clan -

Hiashi Hyuuga

"Wait," Gaara said suddenly walking back through the door. "I left my keys on the dresser.

"Well, hurry up," TenTen shouted playfully. "Or else Shino might try to stick us with his paperwork!"

Gaara laughed as he raced up the stairs. He was surprised at how fun laughing was, when it was with TenTen, his wife. He grabbed his keys from the dresser and turned to take one last peak at the bed before running back out the door.

Sitting on their bed leaning against the pillows were two small teddy bears. One had two hair ribbons tied onto its ears and the other had a red sash tied around it.

A certain Sakura Haruno had wondered about those bears. It seemed that whenever she looked at them, they almost looked just like TenTen and Gaara, though the couple claimed to have had them from since they were young children. Of course, Gaara and TenTen couldn't possibly have met back then.

The bears' resemblance to the young lovers was probably just a simple, silly coincidence…

THE END